Bitcoin Forum

All 70,000 residents living on the Caribbean nation of Dominica will be eligible to receive bitcoin as part of The Bit Drop project, an upcoming collaboration between bitcoin businesses, interest groups and local government officials.

Scheduled to take place on 14th March, 2015, The Bit Drop will feature an island-wide party boasting ‘celebrities, musicians and supporters of bitcoin’, as well as education booths and free giveaways. The event will also coincide with Pi Day, an annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi).

Speaking to CoinDesk, project manager Sarah Blincoe suggested the ambitious project started with a simple question – How do you get bitcoin into the hands of as many people as possible? From there, she explained, a plan was launched to distribute an undisclosed amount of bitcoin to island residents via text messaging.

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http://www.coindesk.com/70000-caribbean-island-residents-receive-bitcoin-2015/

This reminds me of something else a Good old iceland drop
But since it actually involves bitcoin this is a neat idea

Scheduled to take place on 14th March, 2015, The Bit Drop will feature an island-wide party boasting ‘celebrities, musicians and supporters of bitcoin’, as well as education booths and free giveaways. The event will also coincide with Pi Day, an annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi).

I will remember to check how this turned out when 3.14 Comes out seems like a good day to coincide with a Bitcoin holiday since they both are circular and they are getting a small piece of the Bitcoin Pi xd

Does coindesk provide the fund? How much will they be given? There is no detail yet.

Would be nice if cheapair could organize a charter flight from the west coast.

What's the point if they can't spend btc on their island?
Put differently, I trust that end of things will also be supported and fostered

great lets go there and take this btc for free .

any1 comes with me.

Just kidding probably will be some small price or will be something else.

3.1415     ;)

good idea

This is an innovation that i believe will sky rocket the awareness of the BTC,nice work well done.

One of the best ideas so far to populate bitcoin... 8) 8)

thats going to be a lot of transaction fees

this is great..waiting for March, 2015. This will be interesting

I don't think it's a good idea. I'm sure some of those BTC will be lost, because some people won't understand anything about it, or won't care about it. Hey, it's gonna be very little money. $5 to 70,000 people make $350,000, real serious money. It's a bit like faucets. I know some guys who've tried it, but when they discovered the transaction fee was above what they got, or that they couldn't exchange their BTC to cash, they quickly forgot it.

If their BTC is lost, mine are worth more, so I don't care  ;D
But seriously I don't think this will be a problem. If in a few decades if Bitcoin is not fluid enough, miners would agree to split bitcoin value. Ex: 1 old BTC becomes 10 new BTC

Very nice project media attention more people using bitcoins +1

I broke the story first. Banks Worst Fear has talked directly to the project manager.

http://banksworstfear.com/entire-population-caribbean-country-dominica-receiving-free-bitcoins-early-2015-let-bit-drop/

Well, I applaud their attempt to increase BTC adoption.

The best way to do this tho, would be to get as much as possible BTC merchants and ATM's to the island. Then they could have active demonstrations on how it works and the first few beers or bread could be bought with the free BTC received, through this project.

Once people see how easy it is to transact with mobile devices, they would buy more BTC when they want to buy more things.

These people should go to the biggest festivals in the world, and have 2 queues at the beer tents. { One for fiat and one for BTC transactions } In some countries it's against the law to accept only BTC

The people would then see, that transactions with BTC is a lot quicker, than fiat. {No more waiting for change} You just scan and go.

That is the way to get people, to see, the ease of use, with BTC and why they need to adopt it.

How many btc will be dropped? interesting.

The amount depends on the donations i think

btw nice one :)

This is a brilliant idea and one that will really work to help get bitcoin out there for those who wish to have it but have problems. It will definitely bring the right kind of media to bitcoin that is for sure doing something like this :)

http://banksworstfear.com/images/bitdrop/support_bitdrop.png

123S43sbFhNxyaUjj9tBKZcmAWCtd2zRYQ (https://blockchain.info/address/123S43sbFhNxyaUjj9tBKZcmAWCtd2zRYQ)

We're matching contributions up to $1,000

See the bit drop's retweet of us:
https://twitter.com/thebitdrop

Waiting for the data. If that happens, we will see a big dump, like we saw in the Aurora dump.

Also I don't think the Caribbe has enough money and computer usage to make a big difference to Bitcoin moon launch

Naysayer.

When hearing about ‘The Bit Drop’ I was reminded of the mostly failed attempt to ‘airdrop’ Auroracoin into the pockets of Iceland’s citizens. Auroracoin, once worth millions, is now only worth $60,000 according to CoinMarketCap.com. Now, there are many key differences between that attempt and this.

They had to create and market a brand new cryptocurrency
Auroracoin’s airdrop did not have any official government support
They tried to distribute coins to five times the population as ‘The Bit Drop’
They did not have the backing of big sponsors like Coinapult and the College Cryptocurrency Network
I would also argue, since I witnessed studied the Auroracoin fiasco, that ‘The Bit Drop’ has better promotion and organization skills. They’ve given the community enough time to support this cause. Speaking with Ira Miller he had the following to say:

AuroraCoin tried to reinvent the wheel, and was basically eaten by Bitcoin’s much stronger network. We are playing on the strengths of Bitcoin, not trying to compete with it. – Ira Miller, CEO of Coinapult

The whole government is embracing and and it will be the first nation to adopt BITCOIN legally.  THIS IS NUTZ!! with a Z that's how Nuts it is.

This is not like the Icelandic drop. This is a well developed currency, with 100s of MILLIONS invested into the ecosystem. This is absolutely amazing that government has adopted it.

LOL.

This looks more like the MIT "drop" then the iceland drop of autacoins (?) as the amount that each citizen will reeive will likely be very little as someone will need to pay for them verses the iceland coins being premined.

I dont think airdrops are good ideas in general, not after you've given the people an obligatory lecture on Bitcoin. Otherwise they'll just say wow what the fuck is this? free money, lets cash out! because people is mostly dumb and short sighted (aka Auroracoin)

Lucky, and good step too. Bitcoin should spread like wildfire for a greater good of society.

Airdrops however seems childish, as people will combat to get it..

Is this verified to be true? Could also be an impudent scam attempt. But maybe I've just become overly paranoid in recent years...

If it's true, that's a nice idea that could lead to the establishment of the world's first (unofficial) bitcoin nation. However the only chance that it works is that a significant number of bitcoin businesses is established in the first place.

What we don't know is how average citizen will react when gifted some bitcoin. Will they exchange it for dollars and forget about it immediately? Or will it encourage them to employ bitcoin as their primary means of doing business?

ya.ya.yo!

Fantastic project. But in order for it to work it must be preceded by large-scale educational campaign, otherwise all the BTC will be claimed only by students and people already familiar with it, but that's not the point.

True enough but when I think of a Caribbean island I think that there won't be many recreational events going on that day, except for the typical things people like to do at islands tour the city, go to the beach for tourists and business as usual for everyone else lol.

This is a nice idea but I doubt it will work. Small island nations are almost always depended on tourist fiat.

10$ worth of bitcoin to anyone redeeming their SMS.
http://dominicanewsonline.com/news/homepage/news/business/main-organizer-digital-currency-project-speaks/

So it is 10$? I bet most people will be so lazy they will never redeem this...

Of course some people won't redeem them but others will and it will undoubtedly attract tons of new users. 10$ isn't that bad either, that's what Circle is offering and people are going nuts to get them.

?
Clicked on the link and that's what I've got:

http://i60.tinypic.com/2hmd7oz.jpg

I assume they are still taking donations and adding funding. 

I like the idea of putting a small amount of BTC through everyones letterbox personally, in any country.

This is a wonderful idea, I'd love to be part of it as well.
I'm thinking this should help Bitcoin, unless we see the next 'spike' sooner.
Hopefully this doesn't turn up to be some scam or something. Ideas such as this are definitely needed.

Free money for 5 minutes of work ?
It would be sad that people don't use it ...
10$ is worth a burger and a coke. A FREE MEAL !

Great news. Hope my country does the same thing... haha day dreaming again!  ;D ;) ;)

$10 is no small sum for just using a phone to confirm something via text message. I would think that a lot of people would accept this offer. You would remember that is only takes seconds to send a text, but it takes the average person in the US almost 30 minutes of work to make $10, the value is there.